“How suprising that you are out when there are so few people around.” Krow greeted.

Velinel smirked.

Hah.

He’d been trying to figure out what Spell the girl used to ‘see’ her surroundings. It sounded useful.

It wasn’t echolocation, she assured him. Or anything to do with sound.

There was a vampiric-type restoration Spell that allowed users to ‘see’ the energy of people and enchanted objects in the surroundings, in preparation for leeching that energy for their use. The more people and magic around, the more powerful the seeing.

Krow was wrong again, apparently. Velinel agreed to tell him if he guessed nearly correctly.

He sighed. “Is it a restoration Spell, at least?”

“It could be called that, I suppose.” Then her smirk widened just a bit. “It restored part of my sight after all.”

“Is it even a Spell at all?”

“How could it not be a Spell,” she teased.

Krow chuckled. Obviously there was no persuading her even for clues. He changed the subject to matters more fruitful. “Do you know when the apothecary opens?”

“Not for another hour.” Velinel smiled smugly at her victory for the day. “But the owners will be awake now. They’ll be in their garden. If the need is severe, I suppose I can introduce you.”

“You know them well?”

“Melungge is one of mother’s cousins,” Velinel grabbed his sleeve and skipped toward one of the further towers. “She and her husband Hulde adventured with my parents when they were young.”

“Wait, Melungge the herbalist is married to Hulde the apothecary?” It really was a small village.

“You didn’t know?”

“They both sent me for moon-bramble materials yesterday.” Melungge for moon-bramble root and Hulde for the stalks.

Velinel stopped dead in the middle of the road. “On second thought, maybe you should wait until later, so you can catch them alone. Far from each other.”

She smiled weakly at the suspicious look he sent her.

“They’ve been quarrelling,” she explained, “on which part of the moon-bramble is more effective in extending the efficacy of a Burncure Ointment. It’s gotten slightly vicious on both sides.”

Oh. What was there to say to that?

“Don’t worry. I’m sure they’re both enjoying the arguments immensely. It’s just the rest of us…well, it’s been years.” Velinel had a pained look on her face. “Currently, the Burncures from this village are the most effective in the kingdom.”

Krow stifled a laugh that he was sure was inappropriate in this instance. “I’m sure they won’t begrudge a delivery of reasons they can continue their battle indefinitely.”

The quests required fifty of each item.

A jar of Burncure Ointment, the standard size, only needed fifty grams of moon-bramble, though the recipe he knew used pickled moon-bramble buds. The average root was 200 to 300 grams in weight and the stalks were about 150 grams – fifty pieces of each was enough for many experiments.

“If you insist…” She started up the steps to the residential levels of the tower more sedately, glanced at him curiously. “You are leaving today?”

“I am,” he nodded, falling into step beside her.

She smiled. “At least you saw the Old Orchard before you left.”

“Oh, have I stumbled across one of the best-best secrets of this mysterious village? Finally?”

“You might just have. A secret only seen at night!”

“No wonder it was a brilliant sight.” And the rime-apples. There had to be a secret under the secret, for the apples to be able to cure exhaustion so effectively.

Those secrets were for others to uncover, though.

But nothing said he couldn’t try.

He grinned. “Now that I’ve seen that secret, am I eligible to know the other best-best secrets of Gremut?”

“Oh no, no. The mysteries of this village have to be earned!” She closed her hand into a dramatic fist, raised it. “In blood and tears!”

“Just as well,” Krow sighed with disappointment that was just as dramatic. “It would be impolite to uncover everything. What mysteries would be left to others?”

Velinel laughed. “Whatever you say.”

“Young Velinel, is this your young man?” a severe voice interrupted their mirth.

Her what now?

Before he could speak, another voice intruded, louder and alarmed. “She has a what?!”

Velinel stifled her giggles. “I have no young man, aunt, uncle. Krow said he had a delivery for you.” She leaned close to Krow, and whispered quickly. “Signal if you need help, I’ll create a distraction.”

“A delivery?” Melungge peered suspiciously at Krow’s face over the balcony railings that were just bursting with plant life.

“Ah!” her countenance cleared. “You have my roots!”

“What roots?” the second voice demanded. “What roots are you talking about?”

Melungge smiled smugly. “Nothing you need to worry about, dear.”

The apothecary Hulde stumbled out from behind a trellis thick with vines.

“Oh, Velinel, dear niece, it’s good that you have come.” His gaze turned to Krow. “Boy, it’s you! You weren’t pricked too much by those brambles, I hope? Come in, come in, both of you.”

Velinel tugged Krow into the garden.

Melungge narrowed her eyes at her husband. “I hope you have no designs on my roots, old man.”

“What roots? What do I care about roots? A plague on your roots! I had him get me bramble stalks!”

Velinel pointed him silently at an open but shaded preparation table in a room with wide doors that opened to the elevated balcony garden. The room was hung with herbs, bottles and jars on the shelves and cabinets that half-filled the space.

An ingredient prep room. Krow nodded. They left the arguing couple to follow. Velinel pulled out two empty ingredient drawers from the table.

Krow emptied his inventory slots of moon-bramble ingredients, and Velinel sorted them.

“What? What is this?” Hulde cut off his argument to pick up one of the stalks his niece had been arranging side by side in the drawer. Then he narrowed his eyes on the rest of the drawer. “This is all old-growth!”

“Er, yes?” Krow paused in his arranging the roots. Did he not want the old growth stalks?

“What? Someone got you old-growth?” Melungge grabbed the root from Krow’s hand. She beamed at him after a few seconds of examination, then turned a smug smile to her husband. “This one is the same. Perfectly harvested.”

“You’ve done Herbalist work before.” Hulde stared at Krow accusingly.

“Yes, but not anything advanced.” The Forestry subclass he had in Zushkenar only included access to apprentice-level Herbalist skills.

“Let me see your harvesting knife!” the man demanded.

“Hulde!” admonished his wife. She turned to Krow. “You do have a harvester’s knife, of course.”

Krow felt he should back away slowly from the feral expectation in their eyes. “Ah…no?”

“No?! What did you use on this then?”

Krow slowly reached into his Inventory for the knife. He had a bad feeling. True enough, the moment the knife was in his hand, he saw Velinel duck to cover and stifle her chortle.

Melungge pressed fingers to her lips, sighed. “Oh, my dear…”

Hulde pointed a trembling finger at him. “That is a fillet knife!”

He made it sound like Krow had walked into a temple and used the sacred fire to roast potatoes.

What exactly was wrong with a fillet knife? The springy flexibility and the narrow thinness of the blade was actually useful when wanting precision in dealing with the delicate parts of a plant. He knew better than to say that though.

Melungge bumped her husband away, interrupting the outraged and offended rant on the tip of his tongue. She took the knife from Krow, twirled it between her fingers expertly.

Krow blinked, glanced at Velinel, who shrugged knowingly.

“You must have used a knife a lot, if you could harvest old growth moon-bramble with this,” the herbalist concluded.

Well, yes, in another life. Also, in this iteration of Redlands, his Knife Handling skill from the Butcher subclass was currently mastered at 100%.

He gained Second Apprentice for his Butcher subclass yesterday night, in fact, due to knife skills retained from another life.

At 95% realism, the system assist was almost completely turned off.

Skill mastery at that point was semi-dependent on the realworld skills of the player.

The 5% left was enough to cover some of the disconnect between the skills Krow knew and the reality that his body (virtual or otherwise) was weaker than he was used to, wasn’t yet able to handle some of the things his head insisted he could do.

Hopefully, in another realtime week, the virtual body and this virtual Redlands would stop feeling strange. The weird itch under his skin would go away and he would stop feeling like everything around him was just a little bit off.

“I’ve decided,” Melungge slapped the knife down on the table, faced Krow determinedly. “You’re going to be my apprentice.”

Eh?

Hulde glared at her. “What are you talking about, you old weed-smelling witch? He came to my shop multiple times. Obviously he’s mine!”

Eh?!

“Obviously I offered first. You dawdled, you withered slug, like you always do! Maybe now you’d remember to buy more vials when they run out, instead of procrastinating until someone reducing three mixtures on the furnace has to run out to the shops in a panic because there are. No. Vials. In. The. House.” She smiled very politely at her husband, then turned to beam at Krow. “Right, young man? You wouldn’t do that, would you?”

Krow opened his mouth, closed it. Then decided not to get into it. “I’d rather just be paid, really.”

“Yes, of course!” Hulde grabbed his shoulder, not-so-subtly steering him away from Melungge. He reached into his belt, dropped a bunch of silver coins into Krow’s hand. “The quality is better than I expected from a kid like you, so here’s a few serpens more!”

[You’ve finished the quest |:The Apothecary’s Bramble Stalks:| and have gained +2 Reputation Points, +7 Experience Points, +8 Silver Serpens!]

“Yes,” agreed Melungge. She added her own coins into the pile, glaring at her husband challengingly. “Good work must be rewarded.”

[You’ve finished the quest |:The Herbalist’s Bramble Roots:| and have gained +2 Reputation Points, +7 Experience Points, +8 Silver Serpens!]

Haha. They’d both doubled the reward money.

“Don’t bribe him, witch, my apprentice won’t be swayed by the sight of gold.”

“Hah. Very different from you, then, you wrinkled spendthrift. I’m certainly not the one who emptied the kitchen coin jar this week.”

Krow glanced at Velinel, who had very quietly backed away to the door. It’s not very nice to leave a friend to sharks, he yelled at her mentally. Especially if the sharks are related to you!

She might have caught something from his expression because she nodded determinedly, then gasped, very loudly. Then pointed at the window. “Oh look,” she cried in tones of very fake shock. “Is that a jadehorn feathertailed butterfly?!”

“WHERE?!” was the simultaneous reaction from the two older draculkar.

“It’s flying away,” Velinel lamented, very unconvincingly. “Past the garden!”

The couple stampeded past them, to lean over the garden rail.

Velinel calmly took Krow’s arm. They bounded down the steps of the tower.

“Thank you,” Krow called back to the couple. “I’m flattered, but I have to leave!”

Velinel laughed as they gained the path, running all out.

Krow joined her laughter, sprinting to get out of sight of the tower. “That was your distraction?”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

He raised a brow at her, smiling. “Jadehorn Feathertails aren’t generally seen at this altitude.”

“No,” she cheerfully agreed. “But every once in a while, a few get blown up here when there’s a swarm near. It happens often enough that it’s believable to see one. A lucky omen.”

“Lucky for us, then.”

They slowed down as they approached the main plaza.

“They had an argument, last year,” Velinel elaborated. “About whether the butterfly’s wingdust could be used to increase the flavor of spices for draculkar. It was inconclusive because Jadehorn Feathertails don’t come up here often. They don’t like leaving arguments unsettled.”

Krow’s smile widened. “I’m really happy you’re the first person I saw here.”

“I’m happy to know you as well! You’re like the oddly energetic older brother I never knew could be so fun.”

“Yes yes, I’m entirely here for your entertainment.”

“Too bad you’re leaving, really,” she said wistfully.

Krow felt a little touched at the sentiment.

“I want to see what face Father would make when Uncle stomps over to the workshop and demands that he hand over ‘my young man’ to be his apprentice.”

The warm feelings went away immediately. He rolled his eyes.

“You should be more worried about what tower he’d lock you up in, if your uncle really did that.”

She paused. “Oh, right.”

He contemplated seriously, her sightless eyes. “It’s a Halo, isn’t it.”

“Definitely.” The answer was immediate.

Their eyes met.

The laughter of young people rang through the nearly empty plaza, vigorous and alive.